There are moments in our lives where we can truly appreciate who we are and what we are. I am sure there are times I am happy to be a woman, like every time I see a dude get cracked in the junk…I am happy I don’t have junk that can bring me down like that. God damn wussy peepees.

But let me point out there are are unsavory parts to being a woman. There are the obvious ones: The wild wolverine who takes up residence in my uterus once a month and goes crazy all up in there causing blood, cramps and general mental illness feelings.

There’s the body image things. I know anyone can suffer from poor self esteem, but I think we all know girls kind of have that market cornered.

You get the picture, there are pros and cons to having boobs and a va-jayjay, but here are a couple of cons I bet you haven’t read about:

The fact that you need a fucking safe cracking kit to get into any sort of informational tool meant to be peed on. Any woman well versed in fertility knows that the most accurate way to get a true reading on a pregnancy test or ovulation test is to use the pee when you first get up in the morning. So, there you are, about to pee on yourself, half asleep and struggling to open the test. As if it isn’t humiliating enough that you have to pee on something, they make it almost impossible.*

Here’s another fun fact: sunburns and bras are a terrible combination and I wouldn’t recommend it.** I can sit here and complain that if society wasn’t so this-or-that I wouldn’t have to wear a bra and things would be a hunky dory, but my boobs have girth and they need to be corralled. It can get painful if I need to go down some steps or jog into a store and the girls are bouncing up and giving me black eyes.

*Just settle the fuck down. I am not pregnant, nor are we trying to get pregnant. Knowing when not to have sex is our only form of birth control right now and I shouldn’t even be explaining this to you! GOSH.

**And don’t even talk to me about sunscreen because I KNOW! It’s not like I planned this. Jeez.

Not everyone I know likes to be called “bitch” and I really have a hard time accepting that fact. It’s not that I think everyone is a bitch (or do I?) it’s that I just think it’s an appropriate way of greeting or stating something to anyone.

“Bitch, where are my fucking pants?”

“Oh, that bitch be crazy.”

“I love you too, bitch.”

Just now I was doing Mom Research (Facebook) and I saw that a girl I knew has fully grown chickens and that she and I had discussed us buying some eggs from her chikens’ asses. I almost wrote “Bitch, where are my eggs?” on her Facebook page. I was seriously VERY close. It took me a few moments to realize that not everyone responds well to being addressed as bitch…nor do they like egg entitlement from people they barely know.

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My neighbor next door is a crabby bitch. This time I mean bitch in the literal sense…not the friendly one.

When I realized that there was free air conditioning outside today and went around the house opening windows, I saw she was RIGHT outside my east window where the best breezes come through. I had to wait to open the window. I couldn’t really put my finger on why I felt the need to wait. Did I just not want to talk to her? She was bending over, would she think I was looking at her ass? Would I be obliged to talk to her through my window? That would be weird…I mean, we live next to each other, but we’re not really neighborly like Tim the Tool Man Taylor and his disembodied neighbor What’s-his-face.

Finally I settled on just waiting to open the window until she left. I told the kids that the evil witch that lives in the haunted house next door has gas and I didn’t want it to come in through the window because it would smell like death.

Problem solved.

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When you’re pretty sure that a book or a DVD you own is absolutely NO good to you anymore, you might bring them to a used book store, put them on a garage sale or simply give them away.

But what if it’s porn? What do people do with a porn DVD that just isn’t giving them the tinglies down there anymore? Do you have to throw it away? Is there a porn recycling program so that some 14 year-old boy somewhere can be where you used to be in discovering their sexuality?

Someone needs to look into this problem. We can’t have porn filling up our landfills.

July 3rd was my wedding anniversary. My husband and I had made plans to spend the late afternoon and early evening sitting on a rooftop bar with friends. The weather was fabulous and we are partial to our friends.

In addition to the evening with friends, Mike and I had gotten a room at a hotel downtown, within walking distance from the bar so that we could drink as much as we want. As it turned out we probably didn’t need the hotel as we didn’t drink as much as we could have, but it was nice to have it just the same.

My brain has a range of emotions in regards to hotel rooms. Of course there is the convenience of having a space of your own when traveling. I have always preferred staying in a hotel to staying at someone’s house. As a solitary person I need a lot of down time and I like having my own “home base” to return to and work from. There are times during travel where I just need to take a break from going and going. Luckily my husband is the same way. In fact, we spent one evening of our honeymoon in bed, eating Totino’s Pizza Rolls and watching True Blood.

However, a hotel room is NOT home. When you walk into the room I tend to have that Terminator vision screen pop up in my head as I assess everything that could possibly have semen or some other bodily fluid on it. I kick under the beds to make sure it’s not open and potentially hiding a dead prostitute. I check for lipstick marks on the “clean” glasses…you get the picture. I am not even a germ-a-phobe, but dang…those places can be gross.

Once I have reconciled with the fact that this place has to be my home for the next day or so and that there are no visible signs of nastiness or dead bodies, I then move on to taking stock of our amenity situation. Is there a hairdryer? How well do the curtains block light? Does the lotion smell good? Why do they always have a “Facial Bar” for hand soap? How needs this many hand towels? Does the shower have good water pressure or does it feel like someone is peeing on your head? You know…the petty stuff.

When we travel as a family we tend to pick hotels that have a continental breakfast. It just works well when you need to feed kids. It’s nice to wake up and know you don’t have to “order” something and can eat and go back to your room. I will gladly exchange the long wait for the toaster and floppy sausage discs for the need to leave the room to feed the kids right after they get up.

Upon checking out of the hotel I will check and re-check if we have left anything behind. Usually we find a stray phone charger or hair tie. After that I am all about taking what is “complimentary”. I look like Steve Martin from The Jerk. “I don’t need any of this stuff, none of it…except this small bottle of lotion, and this shower cap. But nothing else! Not a thing except this bag of green tea that I will never drink and the shamp and condish that will make my hair feel like straw. That’s it though! Except for this pen.” I can’t remember the last time I bought a pen. All of my pens are taken from businesses, hotels or my job.

After we get home from our stay at our hotel, I generally wash EVERYTHING. I honestly must be able to turn off my brain while sleeping in those beds because just thinking about it now is making me wiggle and gag simultaneously.

I have a very complicated relationship with hotels. I just thought you should know.

BTW, this is the room we stayed in at the Millennium Hotel in Minneapolis, MN. During our check-in we were asked if we were staying for a special occasion. When we mentioned that it was our anniversary we were bumped up to a Club Level room. Very nice. The breakfast was good and the staff was very kind. I am also happy to report clean rooms and no dead ladies of the night.

I once asked a friend of mine why he didn’t read my blog. I was hoping he would have at least glanced at it since he is a notoriously funny guy with a cool podcast. When pressed he finally said, “I don’t have time to read a ‘mommy blog'”. Ugh. A mommy blog? I was disappointed, but I could see why he would think that is what I was writing. Most female bloggers tend to keep their subjects within the acceptable parameters of female writers: kids, home, cooking, fashion, makeup, relationships, DIY and you get the drift.

Now, that being said, I do not think I have what can traditionally be categorized as a “Mommy Blog”. Therefore today’s subject will be…

Potty training.

I know it’s a decidedly mommy subject and while I do not consider my writing to constantly fall in that category, I think I can write about it once in a fucking while. Fuck.

This post is not going to be a “how to potty train your kid” post. Nope, not at all. It’s about what a goddam shit show potty training can be. Literally…well, it was literally when Joey was in the phase of modern arting our carpet with his diaper deliveries, but luckily he has gotten past that stage in his life. The poop painting stage.

Currently we are trying to get the whole potty thing going. We start and then something happens. Joey gets sick and loses control of his bowels for a weekend. We have visitors or a long trip. I just can’t stop drinking wine. It’s always something.

I have people telling me “he’s just not ready.” Bullshit. Every so often he will take himself to the bathroom, flush, wash his hands and act like it ain’t no thang. But if we ever dare to ask him if he has to go potty and try and steer him toward a room that contains a toilet he will lose his fucking mind.

I have people telling me “all I had to do what put so-and-so in real underwear and they didn’t like the feeling of being dirty and that was that.” Well, great, but what if your kid has no issue with stewing in his own filth? What if the amateur Thomas the Tank Engine video from Japan he is currently watching is SO engaging that no amount of pee in the world could tear him away? Yeah, what about that?

I have people telling me “when he sees that his friends use the potty, he will want to too.” Well, my son is the type of kid who doesn’t care what anyone does unless that person is one of his parents telling him what to do. He is perfectly find doing his own thing. He couldn’t care less about all of the kids using the potty. If peeing your pants was cool, consider my 3.5 year-old Miles Davis.*

So, what do we do? We spend a small fortune on potty seats: padded ones, character ones, pee guard/no pee guard. We buy a kick-ass Thomas potty chair that plays music when you put pee in it…yeah, that kid knows how to get the music to play without actually having to use it for it’s specific use. We bought these diapers that have an alarm system on them that will alert you when there is wetness so that you can toss your kid right on the pot so that they get the connection between peeing and potty…well, my kid just thought his pants were on fire for a second and that was about it. Well eff.

Basically what I have is a kid who just doesn’t give a shit or a piss. He is able and sometimes willing to use the potty, but it is always on his terms; not our terms nor his bladder’s terms. What do we do with this kid? Do they have potty training boot camp? Can we send him to a scared straight program? Can we just pump him full of drugs for overactive bladder issues and hope that by the time he finally has to go pee he will me ready to listen to reason?

Of course we will keep trying. I mean, there is the whole thing about him growing up and gaining independence, but really I am worried about other people judging me. I know they see that diaper hanging out of his pants and thinking that I am some kind of terrible mother. And that might be true…but they shouldn’t know it just by looking at my son. I know how to cover my tracks better than that.

My great-grandmother raised her kids during the depression. She was NEVER one to spend money where it didn’t need to be spent. Hilda Rice not only knew the value of a dollar, but how much every single penny of that dollar would buy you in 1931. She was very alarmed that we had a jar of pennies in full view of our living room window in my childhood home. Someone was going to break in and take it!

For great-grandma, there was no shame in not having the nicest dress or the biggest house. She wouldn’t judge you on the amount of money you made or how worn your clothes were. Rough hands were a badge of honor and she knew hard work, but if you, your home or your yard were dirty, all bets were off.

I will never forget her saying “soap doesn’t cost that much.” Apathy was a crime and not having respect for yourself to the point of being slovenly was a sin.

Second on her list of commandments was “Thou shall not waste.” Seriously, waste nothing. What do you mean throw away the wrapping paper this gift came in? It’s perfectly good! Why put leftovers in the fridge and warm up it up and waste energy to cool it back down if you’re just going to eat those leftovers in the next two days. Yes…yes, this is all true.

Not many people today can tell you first-hand how hard it was during the dirty thirties, but for some of us, the legacy of what they went through lives on.

Currently I do not have a good spot to compost my organic waste and every single time I throw away a banana peel, coffee grounds or egg shells I can feel the pursed lips of my grandma and great-grandma as they survey the waste I have made out of perfectly good composting material. I can sense their raised eyebrows whenever I purchase something to become more “green”. I have a feeling they are saying “Honey, we were green before it was the fashion.” They’re hipsters, I guess.

I have been trying to channel my grandparents as I raise my children. I am very aware that my boys want for nothing. They have yet to reach the age where the want what they don’t have and I know it’s the nature of kids, but I hope I will handle those situations well when they come. I love seeing my children happy and they are really good boys. Forcing them to experience and live with disappointment is going to be one of those parenting phases that will be harder on me than it is on them. That shit better be worth it. If they still end up being creeps, I just don’t know what I’ll do.

First, I need to lead by example. I have been doing some part by cooking meals, growing food (oh, let’s me honest, my mother does all of the growing of food), making my own cleaning products and working hard to keep up a tidy home. I am in constant fear that my house smells like onions, cats or toddler pee. I scrub and spray until we are all choking on vinegar fumes to try and combat any odor, which is probably imaginary if I must be honest.

I am pretty pleased with myself on the homemade cleaning products front, but I am not much of a DIYer by nature. The fact that I have a limited ability is what probably saves me from being a Pinterest Snob. Well, that and the fact that I just don’t think that every fucking thing needs to be made out of old wooden pallets and burlap. Fuck.

Here’s a good picture of great-grandma Rice telling me about the depression. Based on the look on my high school face, she might be telling me about using Sears Roebuck catalogs as toilet paper.

If it’s one type of person I can’t tolerate, it’s a bully. I know many of my readers may be nodding their heads and thinking this is going to be a heartwarming message about anti-bullying…well, it’s not and there is a good reason why…I know what a bully is and is not. Do you?

A bully is someone who uses strength, whether it be intellectual or physical, to influence and force people to do things they don’t want to do. That’s the black and white definition and since most of us lived through middle school years, we know that there is a ton of gray area there. Torment and harassment can certainly be forms of bullying. There is an imbalance of power by which a real bully creates a victim.

Ahh…there’s a word that is also thrown around a lot. Victim.

Where the hell am I going with you, you may ask? Well, keep your fucking pants on, I am getting there. It takes a lot of my magical word organizing to get to the meat of my bliggity-blogs.

I think we can all agree that getting rid of bullying would be a plus, but how do we do that? So far the method has become a “zero tolerance” policy where anyone can cry bully any time something is said or done that they don’t like. Kids are telling their parents that their teacher is a bully for giving them a negative score. People are getting supper pissy about having someone hold a mirror up to their personality flaws. Those are not bullying tactics…those are things that happen in real life.

My oldest boy is a wonderful child. He is kind, gentle and just about the biggest whiner you have ever seen. His whining can get under my skin and I am doing what I can to stop that shit. If one day he comes home from school and says that Broden (I pick that name because it sounds douchey to me) called him a Wimpy Whiner and it hurt his feelings and he thinks Broden is a bully (can we agree that any parents who name their kids that are basically destined to raise a jerk-wad?)…I will have to call the school and have Broden expelled for wounding my delicate snowflake…wait…NO. I will have to tell Joey that while it’s too bad that his feelings were hurt, he needs to maybe find his role in the conflict. Is he a whiner? Is that something he should work on correcting so that he can get along better in society? Broden held a mirror up and Joey didn’t like what he saw. Joey needs to adapt his social behavior to make it and he needs to learn to stand up for himself. Joey needs to quit whining and tell Broden to go fuck himself. Joey is not a victim even though Broden is a jerk. One does not HAVE to create the other.

This current “bullying” culture is teaching our kids that they don’t have to solve their own problems. And what is worse…that they don’t have to stick up for what’s right and ever change a thing about themselves because it’s always someone else’s fault. They’re a victim. It’s really a shame too, because there are kids who can’t change what they are being harassed about and THOSE people need our support.

The truth is that there are real bullies and real victims, but the gravity of their situations aren’t being noticed among the myriad of people crying wolf. Parents and administrators are getting too involved in situations where they should just be encouraging the kids to just be tougher and better people and work it out. Many times the involvement backfires and the “victim” becomes a social pariah because of over punishment of the “bully”…then that victim is much worse off than before. The bully never really learns anything and it’s never going to be like those shows where the small kid sticks up for himself and then he and the bully become friends and they slowly fade out on a scene of them walking their bikes next to each other down a suburban street while fall leaves fall and you can almost feel the crispness of fall. Lovely.

There are real bullies and because of that, there are real victims. But I feel that those real situations are getting poorly handled because of myriad of people crying bully wolf. This practice of broadening the definition is creating an even wider gap in social classes and creating a real “us against them” attitude.

Mostly this needs to happen so that my kids can be tough enough to stand up to REAL bullies. Those fuckers won’t get away with shit if kids don’t see themselves as victims but can recognize when someone else is being victimized. Maybe solving their own situation with the Brodens of the world will give them the empathy they need to see what needs to be done and the strength of character to do it.

None of us can get through life never hearing about our faults, and we shouldn’t. Some people have a way of pointing out personality flaws that wound and go straight to the heart and that is never fun, but it’s not bullying. Find your role in what happened, change that behavior, and then tell the person who told you “Thank you, but go fuck yourself.”. See…I just solved the world’s problems.

We can’t go on thinking that the world needs to change for us…we need to change the world. I want to raise kids who will stick up for themselves, others and stand up to people being creeps. I also want to raise non-whiners. Dang.

There is security in oddity. During one’s school years it may only win you a couple of token friends who share your love of wearing bowling shoes and tucked in sweaters to school, but later in life it will bring you stability.

How will marching to the beat of your own drum make life easier if it made life such a pain in the ass as a youngster? Well, one day you will have people in your life who love you and know exactly how crazy you are and do you know what that means? It means that they are also probably crazy as shit and they aren’t going anywhere. Those insane bastards count themselves lucky for having scored you.

This relationship security is especially obvious if a weirdo is married or in a long-term relationship. I used to be the only weirdo in my marriage, but my husband has recently learned how to let his crazy flag fly. Example: my husband has recently decided that he likes sleeping in the nude. Completely nude. Appendages all over the damn place! The only nights he isn’t completely au naturale are the nights where he wears his topical medication for his scalp psoriasis. On those special nights he wears a really cute, yellow shower cap. So, that is THE MOST he wears to bed these days…a shower cap. It takes a guy with some exposed, resting balls to come to bed in nothing but a sunshine shower cap and know that his wife doesn’t think he’s too weird or gross.

Don’t worry folks, I totally asked my husband’s permission before I outed Mr. Mike’s birthday suit jammies. He’s totally cool with it. I mean, what would he be worried about? He has a wife and friends who know he’s a God damn fruit cake…he doesn’t give a shit about anything else. That’s exactly why I say that there is security in oddity.

You would have to grill Mike about my crazy habits. It’s too easy to take them for granted until someone points them out.

I do know that I can be crazy judgmental about really nerdy things, especially on social media. When people I went to high school with post status updates on Facebook with terrible grammar and atrocious punctuation, I just can’t handle it. I have even unfriended people for such crimes. What I don’t understand is how those people came to have such a loose handle on the English language. I went to school with those people. We were taught the same shit!

I also nerd out over historical inaccuracies on TV or in movies. Yeah, I’m a damn riot at parties! Recently Mike and I have been watching Salem on WGN…yeah, I know, how much historic and grammatical accuracy can I expect from WGN? Salem is a period series set during the witch trials of the 17th century and while I didn’t expect it to be an educational history lesson, I did expect that they would know when to use the word “hanged” instead of “hung” and that muskets couldn’t shoot more than one shot without being repacked and reloaded. I mean, really. It does seem that most of the shows on WGN are written by teenagers so this shit should be fresh in their minds from basic high school book learnin’.

See, I am the type of weirdo who gets all up in arms over a crappy TV show and tries to prove that I am smarter than writers for basic cable. Yeah, a girl like me needs a special kind of partner. Maybe a guy who sleeps in nothing but a shower cap.